The Whiz Words reading program is a masterpiece. We raised the average benchmark substantially this year through the program. The spelling and dictation are all included in the phonics book, so they reinforce each other. The teacher's guide is self-explanatory. If you don’t have a background, take the teacher's edition, and you will 100% succeed. It walks the teachers through everything — how to deal with giving the information over and every type of question that might come up.  I’ve recommended this program to so many schools because I'm so confident in its success. In second grade, we have 275 students all using the same book and succeeding.

Students in the catapult program require a slower build-up and a more supportive lesson to learn phonics skills. This can create a gap between them and the mainstream classroom. The Whiz Words program has solved this problem by raising the bar and expectations for our teachers while also supporting our students because of its systematic and scaffolded approach. Parents enjoy hearing that students in our system are using the same program as the rest of the grade. Overall, we’ve seen a big improvement in our scoring.

We couldn’t be happier with the Whiz Words program. It’s thorough and has a clear build-up. The chapter books really round out the program. The books give the girls more exposure to the skills, and they absolutely love the stories. This has been a great success!

Whiz Words is a systematic, multisensory program that also layers on a rich decoding/encoding element and stories to reinforce the sounds. These are crucial years for many students who don’t learn just by reading and “catching on,” but need clear instruction to master the more complicated parts of the code. This program is thorough and very detailed, and the teacher’s manual is excellent.